


Eat Shit and Die, Gil

by theorangewitch



Series: Angstober [23]
Category: A Land Fit for Heroes - Richard Morgan
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 03:59:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16468277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theorangewitch/pseuds/theorangewitch
Summary: It was a shame that Ringil didn't get to say goodbye to his friends.





	Eat Shit and Die, Gil

**Author's Note:**

> Day 30 of Angstober - Goodbye. Anyway I was thinking about A Land Fit for Heroes again (as I do at least once a day) and came up with this. If you haven't read it it's a good series. Anyway idk if I captured Gil's voice right. Or Archeth's. Or Egar's. I haven't read them since the summer and I don't have a copy of the book on hand. Also idk why I wrote a post-ending of The Cold Commands fic since I didn't really understand the ending? Anyway enjoy. 
> 
> As usual, the link to the full list of Angstober prompts is in the author's note of the first work of this series.

The longer he stays in the Gray Places, the more of himself deteriorates. No wonder the Ilwrack Changeling was practically feral by the time he and Ringil came face to face. Sometimes he’ll look down at his hands and see the skin flaking away, muscle unwinding like thread unspooling, bone crumbling into dust. And then he’ll blink and his hand will just be his hand again.

Of course, the ghosts of the Gray Places still follow him. They likely always will. That is, until he fades into oblivion and gets absorbed by the looming willows that seem to surround him at all times. His mother is the one who follows him most often. Trails behind him, servant distance, her feet making no noise on the ground. He doesn’t speak to her, not in an attempt to delay his inevitable decay in the scenery, but because he has nothing left to say to her. Seethlaw is there as well, though he doesn’t follow Gil the way Ishil does. Instead, Gil catches him in the corner of his eye, watching him from between the trees. 

He doesn’t attempt to stay in one place. He did once, through three days, or what passes for days in the Gray Places. Made a camp on a rocky outcropping and rested in the gloom and greenery. But the land only shifted around him, and one morning (“morning”) he woke up in an entirely unfamiliar area of the forest. So he kept moving. 

One evening (“evening”) he finds himself in front of a stillwater pool, its surface choked with moss and algae. And then Archeth and Egar are with him. He does his best not to think about them. His allies. His comrades. His friends. Egar on the Sky Road, Archeth (presumably) still living, but neither ever to be seen by his or one another’s eyes again. Still, the Gray Places don’t relent, wouldn’t relent, even if he’d asked them to. They bring Archeth and Egar to him anyway.

“You never said goodbye to me, Gil,” Archeth says She’s standing up to her ankles in the water, the green algae staining her dark boots. 

“You never said goodbye to me,” he retorts. Something about today (“today”) has put him not in the mood to ignore the ghosts. 

“Yeah, but it’s a habit with you,” she continues. “After Gallows Gap you just—poof!—disappeared without a word to me or Eg or anybody else. Took me a bit to find out where you’d fucked off to. And by then, well.” She shakes her head. 

“You got anything to say, Eg?” Gil asks, turning to his other friend. The Dragonbane was sitting cross-legged next to him, staring up at the empty gray sky.

“Eat shit and die, Gil,” he says.

“Yeah, fuck you too Eg, you enormous prick.” Ringil sighs, burying his face in his hands. “Had to go and die on Archidi right at the end there, didn’t you?”

Egar grins. “Killed another dragon though, didn’t I? Not a bad way to go out, all things considered. It’s the worst thing to a steppe barbarian to have a shit death. And mine was pretty good, I’d say. Besides, Archeth doesn’t mind, now does she? Saved her life and a couple dozen more.”

Archeth is staring into the middle distance. She doesn’t seem to have heard Egar’s question. She shrugs. “Is it the same, Gil?” she asks. “The Gray Places. Being here now, when they’re sealed off, as being here before. With Seethlaw.”

This time it’s his turn to shrug. “More or less. Same amount of freaky weird shit factor. But I’ve gotten used to it.”

“From what I’ve heard you got into some freaky weird shit yourself,” Egar says. “Crazy weather magic and all that.”

“The  _ ikinri’ska _ ,” Gil tells him.

“Whatever.”

“Goodbye, Archeth,” Gil says. “Since I didn’t say it before.”

Archeth rarely smiles, but this time she does. “Goodbye, Gil. See you the next time ‘round.”

“How d’you know there’ll be one? And how do you know you’ll be there for it?”

“There always is one. And I’m always there.”

“Immortal Kiriath bullshit,” Gil muttered. When he looked up, Archeth was gone. “Damn.” He looked over to Egar. “You going too?”

“Not before you say goodbye to me,” Egar replied. “Or am I not as deserving as Archeth?”

“Why would I say bye to you? You’re already gone. You were gone before I got here.”

“Fuck yourself, Gil,” Egar said. “You rotten bastard. That’s the most of a goodbye you’ll get from me.”

“Goodbye, Egar,” Gil said, and then the Dragonbane was gone. He looked down at his legs and saw that his skin was starting to flake off. Slowly at first, ashes of burned books in the wind, but then more heavily. Entire chunks up and floating away until there was nothing but red muscle and white sinew left underneath. And even that was already beginning to unwind itself from around his bones. 

**Author's Note:**

> Did I spell ikinri'ska right? Also I forget if Gil found out Egar died and how? I think he did but I'm not suuuuuuure.


End file.
